Lesbian and gay refugees in Australia: A case study on why "discretion" is not a human rights option

Abstract

Australian courts now accept that persons fleeing persecution on the basis of sexual orientation are entitled to claim protection under the international Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, assuming they can prove a risk of persecution if returned to their homeland. The experiences of lesbians and gay men. worldwide support such a finding. To varying degrees, lesbians and gay men have been and remain targeted for persecution because of their sexuality. While the extermination of homosexuals in Nazi Germany during World War Two stands out historically as but one example of the lengths to which states will go to silence the public expression of lesbian and gay sexual identities, more recent examples also reveal the extreme brutality to which gay men and lesbians remain subjected in many nations. In Iran and Saudi Arabia, for example, lesbians and gay men risk death by stoning or hanging; in Romania, imprisonment; in China, labour camps.